Short answer. They were transferred to the newly created labor relations bodies under the Labor Code. Cases pending before the old Court of Industrial Relations and the previous National Labor Relations Commission were taken over by the corresponding divisions or the new NLRC under the Labor Code.
What the law says
All cases pending before the Court of Industrial Relations and the National Labor Relations Commission established under Presidential Decree No. 21 on the date of effectivity of this Code shall be transferred to and processed by the corresponding labor relations divisions or the National Labor Relations Commission created under this Code having cognizance of the same
Labor Code, Article 299 — Transfer Of Pending Cases. Read the full provision →
Transfer of cases to the new bodies
Article 299 of the Labor Code dealt with the transition from the old industrial relations framework to the one the Labor Code established. It provided that all cases pending before the Court of Industrial Relations and the National Labor Relations Commission established under Presidential Decree No. 21 on the date of effectivity of this Code shall be transferred to and processed by the corresponding labor relations divisions or the National Labor Relations Commission created under this Code having cognizance of the same in accordance with the new procedures. No case was simply dropped — the jurisdiction transferred to whichever new body had the appropriate authority.
Cases on appeal stayed with their existing jurisdiction
Not every pending matter was transferred to the new NLRC. The article made an exception for labor relations cases that were already on appeal with the Secretary of Labor or the Office of the President at the time the Labor Code took effect. Those cases remained under their respective jurisdictions and were decided according to the rules and regulations in force at the time the appeal was filed. The idea was to avoid disrupting cases that had already moved up the appellate chain under the old system.
Workmen's compensation cases had a separate rule
The article also addressed a third category: workmen's compensation cases pending before the Workmen's Compensation Units or the Workmen's Compensation Commission as of March 31, 1975. Those cases were to be processed and decided according to the law, rules, and procedures that existed before the effectivity of the Employees Compensation and State Insurance Fund — meaning they stayed under the old compensation regime, not the new one. This avoided retroactive application of the new compensation system to claims that had been filed and were being evaluated under the old rules.
Historical context
Article 299 is a transitional provision whose direct operational effect was exhausted in the years following the Labor Code's effectivity in 1974. The Court of Industrial Relations, established in 1936, was abolished when the Labor Code took effect, with its functions transferred to the new NLRC and to regular courts depending on the nature of the dispute. The provision remains in the Labor Code as a record of that transition. The Labor Code has also been administratively renumbered since then, so this article may appear under a different number in some versions.